STREAMLINE YOUR STUFF: Letting go of excess stuff can act as a catalyst

Jane Veldhoven

Published: Aug 15 at 12:44 p.m.

Updated: Aug 29 at 2:55 p.m.

No matter how much time you spend rearranging, labelling, containerizing and sorting your stuff, if you don’t remove the excess, you’re not really accomplishing much. - 123RF Stock Photo

Letting go of your stuff really can help you change your life

What comes first? Do you need to clear your stuff in order to make space in your life? Or do you need to make space in your life to deal with your stuff? Perhaps both need to happen simultaneously.

You might be asking yourself what’s the difference. My philosophy has always been that if you start to shift your material possessions and remove all the extras from your life, you will open up space for new experiences. Letting go of your stuff really can help you change your life. All of the objects you own have energy. Therefore, removing them from your life changes the energy in your space. When your space looks and feels different, your life changes.

Many people I work with have given over control of their life to stuff. They never have time to do anything fun because they’re so busy trying to organize their stuff. Most of the time, they are just moving all that stuff from one place to the other trying to get organized while failing to realize that they just have too much stuff clogging up their home and their life. No matter how much time you spend rearranging, labelling, containerizing and sorting your stuff, if you don’t remove the excess, you’re not really accomplishing much. To me, that all seems like such a waste of time.

Not that I am saying organizing your belongings is a bad idea. But it is a much better idea once you’ve let go of as much as you possibly can. I always suggest a second pass through everything a few days or weeks after the first pass. Re-evaluating shortly after the first editing session can help you let go of even more. When you’re done that then it’s time to buy containers or storage furniture, sort and label. You have a much better chance of being able to maintain your new level of organization when you have a lot less to deal with.

The interesting thing is that for some people the process is different. A client I am working with right now, who has already decluttered a couple of times, explained to me that she is finally in the place emotionally where she can really let go. In the past she got rid of some of her stuff but still held tightly onto way more than one person needs. She was going through the motions of making space in her life, but she wasn’t really dealing with it once and for all. It’s almost as though she was only scratching the surface of the problem. She had to make a big change in her life, sadly by deciding to go through a divorce after 27 years, before she could really look at her stuff in a new light.

I still believe that if you are feeling stuck or you want to change your life, letting go of excess stuff can act as a catalyst. In order to be truly successful at it, you also need to be ready to deal with the emotional aspects of accumulating material possessions. Remember, you can love your stuff but it can’t love you back.